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Getting more people jiggy with open source projects

Are you a programmer or other tech enthusiast looking to contribute to an open source project for the first time? Do you have a free/open source software project you want to find contributors to?

On Monday 8 PM, we'll be in the Noisebridge common space talking about our http://openhatch.org/ website and how it can help.

We'll show you how you can find the first bug you'll close in open source. You can browse by project, programming language, the kind of help needed (like just "documentation"), or how tough the bug is (we index about 1500 "bitesized" bugs). It's surprisingly easy -- if you can code Python, you'll probably find there's a bug in Python itself that you can tackle.

There are bitesize bugs in projects large and small, like the Python language, Firefox, Mercurial, OpenSolaris, MediaWiki, and many others.

For current contributors, we'll show you how you can get your project listed and reach out to people who might be interested in helping. Plus I think you'll enjoy helping newcomers find their way.

8 PM: We'll have a brief meet and greet

8:15: We'll talk about the website and what it does

8:30 onwards: Freeform questions & answers while you find a project that can use your help and hack on it!

Bring your laptop if you can!

(Some of you saw me at an August 2009 Five Minutes of Fame. This is like that, only the website mostly works now.)